Theater and the Public Sphere in Wilhelminian Germany 1871-1918: description
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Prof. Dr. Martin Baumeister,
Prof. Dr. Christopher Balme
The semi-authoritarian nationalist monarchy which emerged from German unification after 1870/71 represents one of the most dynamic and modern European states of the time. The medium that best documents and registers the contradictions and tensions of this epoch with its far-reaching changes is the theatre, the culturally dominant medium of bourgeois society and at the same time a vastly popular commercial industry. In this seminar we intend to trace with interdisciplinary questions and methods the changing aspects of the complex German theatrical landscape as an integral part of an expanding, urban pubic sphere largely dominated by the market. The focus will be on questions of the place of theatre in the national and local public sphere, institutional organization, the tensions between entertainment on the one hand and the high moral and educational demands on the other. We shall also be looking at the interplay between different media (early film) and the many paratheatrical forms and genres.
Specific topics include:
· Economic and legal aspects: theatre as part of a capitalist economy
· Typologies of the theatre landscape: municipal theatres, stock companies, private theatres, court theatres
· sociology of theatre professions (actors, critics etc.)
· theatre in the context of visual culture (cinema, ethnographic shows, exhibitions, panoptica, circus, photography)
· the small forms (cabaret, operetta, Volkssänger)
· theatre cities in comparison (Munich and Dresden)
Specific topics include:
· Economic and legal aspects: theatre as part of a capitalist economy
· Typologies of the theatre landscape: municipal theatres, stock companies, private theatres, court theatres
· sociology of theatre professions (actors, critics etc.)
· theatre in the context of visual culture (cinema, ethnographic shows, exhibitions, panoptica, circus, photography)
· the small forms (cabaret, operetta, Volkssänger)
· theatre cities in comparison (Munich and Dresden)
